0:00

LinkedIn Presents. I'm

0:06

Rufus Grisscom, and this is

0:09

Next Big Idea Classics. Today,

0:15

the secret to building good

0:17

habits and breaking bad ones.

0:32

It's a new year, folks. And

0:34

this year, we're going to try something a little

0:36

different on the show. As you know,

0:39

typically our guests are authors of

0:41

new books. But lately we've

0:43

been thinking, why limit ourselves?

0:46

Why not look to the past? Why

0:48

not give ourselves permission to sit down

0:50

with the authors of the biggest books

0:52

of the last few decades? So

0:55

we're launching a new series, which

0:57

will be available right here in the

0:59

Next Big Idea feed that we're calling

1:02

Next Big Idea Classics. Here's

1:04

the plan. Every few weeks, we're

1:06

going to have on the show the author

1:08

of a classic book, one

1:10

that changed the conversation when it first

1:12

came out and has since stood the

1:14

test of time. We're going

1:17

to ask these authors, why this

1:19

book? Something happened

1:21

here. You touched on

1:23

something profoundly true or

1:25

profoundly useful, something

1:27

that changed lives or

1:29

changed the way we see ourselves. Why

1:32

did it have such an impact? And

1:34

crucially, is it still relevant? Today,

1:37

we're kicking off this new series

1:39

with what may be the best-selling

1:41

nonfiction book of the last decade,

1:45

a book that was Amazon's top

1:47

seller last year, despite being five years

1:49

old, a book that has sold

1:51

over 15 million copies.

1:54

That's one every 11 seconds. The

1:56

book is Atomic Habits, written by a

1:58

guy named James clear. And

2:01

it's a book that embarrassingly I only

2:04

just got around to reading. But

2:07

let me tell you folks, it's a good

2:09

thing that I did. Because I

2:11

am, as alert listeners of the show know, a

2:14

fixer-upper. I have what

2:16

HR departments tend to call growth

2:18

opportunities. Maybe you do too.

2:22

Why are habits of such universal

2:24

interests? Here's a guess,

2:27

because habits work. As

2:29

I like to say to my kids, habits are

2:31

for lazy people and you are

2:33

lazy. I am too. We all

2:35

are. We like to think of

2:37

life as a contest of will. Men

2:40

and women clenching their faces into fists

2:42

as they do the impossible. It makes

2:44

for great cinema. But in

2:46

fact, we all have limited willpower.

2:49

It's the small acts, good

2:51

habits, compounded over time to

2:54

produce most of the things

2:56

we really care about. Whether

2:58

it's writing beautiful novels, getting

3:00

into shape, building caring relationships,

3:02

or setting the world record with a hula hoop. We

3:06

know this. We know we

3:08

should put our running shoes out the night

3:10

before, delete the TikTok app. We should be

3:12

expressing gratitude for indoor plumbing in the morning

3:14

while we're brushing our teeth. And

3:17

yet, we still struggle. It's

3:19

the building of the habit that's the problem.

3:22

Once it's in place, it's just an

3:24

algorithm, a seamless workflow. It just happens.

3:28

So why did this book, Atomic

3:30

Habits, among the hundreds of books

3:32

on habits available, blow up? That

3:35

was my first question for James and

3:37

his response surprised me. I'll let James

3:39

answer the question, but here's a sneak

3:42

peek. James showed that forming

3:44

good habits didn't have to hurt. It

3:46

turns out that if you make small

3:48

incremental changes, easy changes, the

3:51

right way, you can produce

3:53

dramatic results. Every

3:56

action you take, James Clear tells

3:58

us, is a vote for the person

4:00

you wish to become. Let

4:02

me say that one more time. Every action you

4:04

take is a vote for the person

4:06

you wish to become. I just love

4:09

that. Let's see if this

4:11

small action, listening to my conversation with

4:13

James Clear, can trigger a

4:15

series of other actions, both for me

4:17

and for you. Hey,

4:35

I'm Michael Kovnak, host of The

4:37

Next Big Idea Daily. The show

4:39

is a masterclass in better living,

4:41

from some of the smartest writers

4:43

around. Every morning, Monday through Friday,

4:45

we'll serve up a quick 10-minute

4:47

lesson on how to strengthen your

4:49

relationship, supercharge your creativity, boost your

4:51

productivity, and more. Follow The Next

4:53

Big Idea Daily wherever you get

4:55

your podcast. James

5:10

Clear, welcome to The Next Big Idea podcast.

5:12

Hey, thank you so much. Thanks for having

5:14

me and pleasure to talk as always. James,

5:17

I must be the last person that

5:19

I know to read your book,

5:22

which might make me number 15 million

5:25

and one. Have

5:27

you gotten to the point where it's surprising that

5:30

someone has not read your book? It's still surprising

5:32

to me that anybody has read it. It's like

5:34

a minor miracle anyone's paying attention. So I'm perfectly

5:36

happy to have you read now, and anybody else

5:38

is welcome to join whenever it makes sense for

5:40

them. I've been really lucky

5:43

and fortunate with how it's gone, and

5:45

honestly, from the very start, I

5:47

just wanted to write something that was useful and

5:49

that contributed to

5:51

my little corner of the universe. And

5:54

thankfully, the ideas and concepts have resonated, and

5:56

people have been able to take them and

5:59

run with it. you know, make their own

6:01

habits and make their own changes and create

6:03

their own things. And I think that's great.

6:05

And being useful has really been the driving

6:07

motive the whole time. Well,

6:09

it's been useful on a very large scale.

6:12

And, you know, to put this in context, this is

6:14

a kind of like once in a decade or quarter

6:17

century phenomenon, as far as book sales

6:19

are concerned. There were a bunch

6:21

of other books about habits before yours. Why

6:24

do you think atomic habits has kind

6:26

of defied the normal physics of book

6:28

sales? Certainly, there's

6:30

got to be some element of luck involved.

6:33

But I do think that there are a

6:35

few big things that also made a meaningful

6:37

difference to the outcome. The

6:39

first thing is you just mentioned there are

6:41

a lot of books that have been written

6:43

about habits. Well, actually, that's a very important

6:45

threshold that a lot of books that do

6:47

get published don't cross, which is, is

6:50

the topic timeless and universal? And

6:53

I do think habits is a topic that is timeless and

6:55

universal. There have been many people who've written about it before

6:57

me, and there will be plenty of habit books after me.

7:00

And I'm just trying to add my little bit

7:02

of contribution to the pile. But the

7:05

helpful thing is that I don't have to

7:07

convince anybody that habits are important or that

7:09

you want to have good habits or that

7:11

you want to break bad ones. All

7:13

I have to convince you of is that if you're only

7:15

going to read one book about it, atomic habits is the

7:18

one to read. There is also an

7:20

interesting dynamic with habits as a topic, which is

7:22

that it's universal in the sense

7:24

that we all have them, but

7:26

your habits feel very individual. They feel like

7:28

yours, not mine. And so everybody kind of

7:31

has their own little version of it, of

7:33

what it means to build their habits, of

7:35

which habits they're trying to create and focus

7:37

on. And so it's really

7:39

easy for it to feel like it

7:41

has a lot of personal application to

7:43

your life because of how tailored they

7:46

are to your experience. So it's simultaneously

7:48

universal and individualized, which is, I think,

7:50

again, something that's somewhat rare

7:52

in terms of book topics. There

7:54

were a lot of strategic decisions that I made

7:57

about the book that I do think meaningfully

7:59

impacted the outcome. So trying

8:01

to make it highly practical. There were a lot

8:03

of books that have been written about habits before

8:05

that are a little more journalistic or they're kind

8:08

of reporting on the phenomenon of habits or the

8:10

science of habits and that's all useful too. But

8:13

what I ultimately care about is how do we

8:15

apply it in our daily life? How do I

8:17

make this actionable and practical? And

8:19

you know, we all want to get results in

8:21

our life. And so I think if the book

8:24

does genuinely help you do that, then you're in

8:26

a position for a lot of people to be

8:28

interested and to want to share it. And

8:31

then the final thing that I'll say

8:33

is that my packaging of the material

8:36

is around small changes that

8:38

make a big difference or scaling habits down

8:40

and making them easy but they can still

8:42

lead to a remarkable result. And

8:44

there is something nice about the idea of getting 1%

8:47

better each day or trying to focus on

8:49

the small behavior change, which is that it

8:51

feels accessible. You know, it feels palatable. You're

8:53

like, oh, this is maybe something I could

8:55

actually stick to. I'm not asking you to

8:57

change your whole life. I'm just asking you

8:59

to make a small adjustment and then to

9:01

trust that over time that can compound and

9:03

transform into something greater. I'm embarrassed to say

9:05

that I was late to catch the double

9:08

entendre in the name atomic habits, right? Which

9:10

is atomic means small. It also means

9:12

explosive. I think there's actually... So

9:15

I always say like I chose it because I can

9:17

see like three meanings in it. So the first meaning

9:19

is the word tiny or small like an atom and

9:21

your habit should be small and easy to do. The

9:24

second one and the one that people often

9:26

overlook is that atoms build into molecules and

9:28

molecules build into compounds. And so it's like

9:30

the fundamental unit of a larger system. And

9:33

the way that you mentioned earlier, you know, I kind

9:36

of recommend not just making a single small change,

9:38

but like many of them and collectively you

9:40

create this system of progress. And

9:42

then the final meaning is what you just mentioned, which is

9:44

like the source of immense energy or power. And

9:47

I think if you understand those three meanings, you

9:50

can kind of see the arc of the book, which is you

9:52

start with changes that are small and easy

9:54

to do and you layer them together like

9:56

atoms in a molecule or units in a

9:59

larger system. And if you do

10:01

that well, then you can get this really

10:03

powerful, remarkable result in the long run. Yeah,

10:06

and in that second meaning, there's also

10:09

sort of the implication that everything

10:11

we do is made up of habits,

10:13

really. I mean, even the

10:15

way we interact with other people in our lives, a

10:18

lot of things that we think of as outside the realm of habits.

10:21

I think I had previously thought of

10:23

habits as more about health

10:25

and fitness and work productivity.

10:28

Sure. And there's this argument

10:30

in that second meaning of atomic

10:32

that everything's built out of these

10:34

behaviors really. Well, certainly not everything

10:37

in life is a habit, but everything

10:39

in life is touched by your habits

10:41

or is influenced by them. And

10:45

they have a very dramatic effect

10:47

on the lifestyle that you end up living.

10:50

Now the suggestion that it's atomic

10:53

bomb of potential impact is a

10:55

big one, of course. And

10:58

this is based upon this notion that as you say,

11:01

habits are the compound interest

11:03

of self-improvement. Now, compound

11:05

interest, as we know, is subtle at first,

11:07

but delivers exponential returns over time. Do you

11:09

think it's overstating it to say that the

11:12

returns on habit modification are exponential or

11:15

you think that's a fair statement? Well,

11:17

in a mathematical sense, your habits are

11:19

not like a formula. It's not like

11:21

you can just plug your life into

11:23

an equation and spit out a result.

11:26

But conceptually or in some

11:28

kind of broader philosophical

11:30

sense, certainly what

11:33

you just described, compound interest starts out

11:35

small and then compounds into something much

11:37

more meaningful over time, we

11:39

see that sort of pattern all the time with your

11:41

habits. The person

11:43

who reads for 10 minutes today, well, reading for

11:45

10 minutes today does not make you a genius,

11:47

but over a 10 or 20 or 30 year

11:50

period, the person who is always learning something new

11:52

or going to bed a little bit smarter than

11:54

they were when they woke up. Yeah,

11:57

that can be a pretty meaningful difference in wisdom and

11:59

insight. So you see this

12:01

same pattern again and again throughout

12:03

life, which is the daily action

12:05

that seems pretty insignificant, relatively easy

12:07

to dismiss, pretty small. It

12:10

compounds, it transforms into something much greater

12:12

over time. So time

12:15

will magnify whatever you feed

12:17

it. If you have good

12:19

habits, then time becomes your ally, and every day that

12:21

goes by, you kind of put yourself in a stronger

12:23

position. And if you have bad

12:25

habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that goes

12:27

by, you dig the hole a little bit deeper. And

12:30

so what I'm really trying to get across

12:32

when I talk about habits being the compound

12:35

interest of self-improvement is

12:37

an emphasis on trajectory rather

12:39

than position. There's

12:41

a lot of discussion about position in life. What's

12:44

the number on the scale? How much money is in

12:46

the bank account? What's the current stock price? What are

12:48

the quarterly earnings? We have all these ways of measuring

12:50

our current position. And then if

12:52

we aren't where we wanted to be or we haven't achieved what we

12:54

set out to achieve, we feel guilty or

12:56

start to judge ourselves or feel bad because we haven't

12:58

achieved what we set out to achieve yet. And

13:01

what I'm encouraging is say, listen, you know,

13:03

measurement can be useful, but just for a

13:06

minute, can we stop worrying so much about

13:08

our current position and instead

13:10

focus a little bit more on our

13:12

current trajectory? Are we getting 1% better

13:14

or 1% worse? Are your habits

13:16

leading you on an upward path or

13:19

are you flatlining? And

13:21

if you're on a good trajectory, then all you

13:23

need is time. So this

13:25

idea of small habits adding up and compounding

13:27

into something more is not necessarily

13:30

like a mathematical argument, but I do think

13:32

that it is a philosophy or an approach

13:34

that resonates with real life experience and what

13:36

we all have seen and how our daily

13:39

actions add up into something much greater over

13:41

time. Well, let's get into

13:43

the mechanics of how we can improve our

13:45

habits. And James, I'm happy

13:47

to offer myself as a guinea pig. And

13:50

one habit I want to adopt is

13:52

journaling every morning. And

13:54

this is something I have literally been

13:57

trying to do for like 20 years. I

14:01

get into these modes of like, I'm like, oh yeah, and

14:04

every time I do it, I take 20, 30 minutes to

14:06

journal in the morning, and I'm like, this is fantastic,

14:08

I should do this every day. And I've had periods

14:10

of doing it for like, you know,

14:12

little spurts of enthusiasm, two or three times

14:14

a week for a couple months, and then

14:17

it sort of fades away. So

14:19

how do I make this a daily

14:21

habit? Okay, so let me lay out

14:23

the framework, and then we can talk

14:25

about some practical considerations. So, you

14:28

know, in Atomic Habits, I talk about, there's basically four

14:30

ways that you can, or four things you can do

14:32

if you want to help shape a habit, and I

14:34

call them the four laws of behavior change. Now,

14:36

you don't need all four of these things to

14:38

happen at the same time, but the more of

14:41

them that you have working for you, the better

14:43

positioned you are to follow through on a good

14:45

habit. So, from a quick

14:47

overview, the first law is to make it

14:49

obvious, see what the cues of your habits

14:51

to be obvious, available, visible, easy to see.

14:53

The second law is to make it attractive,

14:55

so the more attractive or appealing, the more

14:57

engaging or fun a habit is, the more

14:59

likely you are to feel compelled to do

15:01

it. The third law

15:03

is to make it easy, so the easier,

15:06

more convenient, frictionless, simple a habit is, the

15:08

more likely it is to be performed. And

15:11

then the fourth and final law is to make it

15:13

satisfying. The more satisfying or enjoyable a habit is, the

15:15

more that you have some kind of like positive emotional

15:17

experience with it, the more likely you are to return

15:19

to it in the future. So, make it

15:21

obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make

15:23

it satisfying. So if you're sitting there,

15:25

if you're listening to this, and you're thinking, you know, I have

15:28

a habit that I keep procrastinating on, like I just wish I

15:30

could get started on it, or maybe kind

15:32

of similar to what you just said, Rufus, you know, I

15:34

do this every now and then, or I've done it in

15:36

fits and starts, but I've never kind of been consistent with

15:38

it, you can just go

15:40

through those four laws and ask yourself, how

15:43

can I make the behavior more obvious? How can

15:45

I make it more attractive? How can I make

15:48

it easier? How can I make it more satisfying?

15:50

And the answers to those questions will reveal different

15:53

steps that you can take to increase the odds

15:55

that the behavior is going to occur. So

15:57

let's take your journaling example. So if we talk about

15:59

the... law, make it obvious. This

16:02

can mean a couple different things, but it

16:04

mostly, it's about structuring your physical environment to

16:06

make it obvious when and where the behavior

16:08

is going to occur. So you

16:10

could start by buying a journal and then

16:13

choosing a spot where that's going to occur.

16:15

So is there a seat at the

16:17

table or a chair in the corner of the room

16:19

where you're going to sit and that's

16:21

going to become the journaling chair? And

16:23

the more clearly that space is defined, the more

16:26

obvious it is, the more that this is the

16:28

one thing that happens here and I don't do

16:30

anything else there, the more likely

16:32

it is that you start to tie that behavior

16:34

to that space. And there have

16:36

been a couple research studies that have shown

16:38

that it's easier to build

16:41

a new habit if it's the only thing that's

16:43

happening in that space because you're not like competing

16:45

with all the other things that happen. For example,

16:48

let's say that your

16:50

couch at 8 p.m. is where

16:52

you normally watch Netflix. And

16:54

if you say, well, after dinner now, I'm going to sit

16:57

down, I'm going to try to journal on the couch. Without

16:59

even really thinking about it, you're kind of subconsciously

17:02

pulled to grabbing the remote and turning on the

17:04

TV because that's what usually happens there. Whereas

17:07

even if you're in the same room, but you set

17:09

a separate space for it, a chair in the corner

17:11

or something, you don't usually sit there to watch TV

17:13

and so it can be a little more clean that

17:15

you sit down and this is where you do the

17:18

journaling. So that's first law, make it obvious.

17:21

Second law, make it attractive. I

17:23

think the key question to ask yourself here and

17:26

whether it's journaling or any other habit that we're

17:28

talking about is what would this

17:30

look like if it was fun? What

17:32

would it look like if this was enjoyable to me? The most

17:35

common New Year's resolution is do something like exercise or

17:37

go to the gym. And I

17:39

kind of feel like a lot of people go to

17:41

the gym in January because they think they should go

17:43

to the gym or that society wants them to go

17:45

to the gym or something. But we

17:47

could come up with a very long

17:49

list of what it means to live

17:52

an active lifestyle. Rock climb, do the

17:54

kayak, whatever. And you

17:56

should come up with that list and then pick

17:58

the version of an exercise habit. it that feels

18:00

most fun to you, that feels most attractive. Totally.

18:04

So in the case of journaling, I can

18:06

very easily see how someone could get in

18:09

the mindset of, well, for it to matter,

18:11

for this to count, I need to write

18:13

a full page every day or something like

18:15

that. But let's come up

18:17

with something fun. Maybe the fun version is that

18:19

you journal one sentence each day. And

18:21

that's easy and accessible, and you can do it even if you

18:23

forgot about it all day and you're getting ready to climb in

18:26

bed at the end of the night. Maybe

18:28

that sounds, maybe it's small enough that it sounds kind of

18:30

like a game or that it sounds fun to you. Or

18:33

maybe the fun version is that you don't

18:35

just journal off the cuff or whatever you're

18:38

thinking at the time. You have a

18:40

journaling prompt that you always answer, or you

18:42

have a rotating series of questions that gets

18:45

you started. But whatever it is,

18:47

you should pick some version of that that feels

18:49

appealing to you. I like the idea that that's

18:51

a very individual thing, that the

18:54

characteristic that makes a given habit

18:56

attractive is different for each individual.

18:58

So for instance, for me, for the past few weeks,

19:00

I've had a better run with the journaling. I've

19:03

been up to three or four days a week. And

19:05

it's been partly because I actually love the

19:07

free writing exercise of just write anything. And

19:11

then I try to follow that with

19:13

some intentions about my day and who

19:15

do I need to be to accomplish

19:17

those intentions. But the free writing for

19:19

me is fun. And if I pair that with a hot cup

19:21

of coffee, which I love, write in

19:23

there. Now I've got

19:25

an attractive bundle to start

19:28

with. And then I guess

19:30

making it shorter initially, having

19:32

lower expectations about the length of

19:36

the exercise, maybe that fits into

19:38

making it both attractive and easy. And easy, sure.

19:40

And you will see that some of the things

19:42

we talk about, they start to overlap. Like a

19:44

certain change may make something both obvious and easy.

19:46

And so that's the first and the third law.

19:49

But your hot cup of coffee is an interesting

19:51

one. I just want to double click on that

19:53

for a second. This is a

19:55

strategy that I mentioned in the book, but it originally came

19:57

from Katie Milkman, who's a researcher at the University of New

19:59

York. warden and You

20:02

know her idea is what I she

20:04

calls temptation bundling and you you combine

20:07

Something that you want to do so in your case

20:09

drink a hot cup of coffee That's something that sounds

20:11

nice to you with something that you

20:13

need to do So in this case the journaling

20:16

habit and by combining those two

20:18

things together, you're instantly making journaling more attractive

20:20

It's the thing that happens when I get

20:22

to have coffee. Okay, so that's

20:24

make it obvious make it attractive third law make

20:26

it easy journaling one sentence

20:28

a day is Obvious

20:31

example of that, you know Like you're trying

20:33

to scale it down so that it's not

20:35

intimidating And I think my

20:37

little measure for this or my little strategy

20:39

is what I call the two-minute rule If

20:41

you want to make your habits easy just

20:43

follow the two-minute rule Which says take whatever

20:45

habit you're trying to build and scale

20:47

it down to something takes two minutes or less to

20:50

do so Read 30

20:52

books a year becomes read one page or do

20:54

yoga four days a week becomes take out my

20:56

yoga mat And the more that you can

20:58

scale it down and optimize it like that The

21:01

easier it becomes and you don't have

21:03

as much friction or baggage associated with

21:05

showing up and doing the behavior and

21:07

and you say You can even narrow

21:09

it down to two minutes, right

21:12

that you could literally like go to the gym

21:15

Do one set of squats and leave I

21:17

I had a reader who did this So I mentioned

21:19

this guy whose name is Mitch He lost over a

21:21

hundred pounds and he's kept off from more than a

21:23

decade now But when he first started going to the

21:25

gym like the first six weeks He had

21:27

this strange little rule for himself where he

21:29

wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five

21:31

minutes So he would get in the car

21:33

drive to the gym do half an exercise

21:36

Get back in the car drive home and

21:38

it sounds ridiculous But what you

21:40

realize is that he was mastering the art of

21:42

showing up, you know He was becoming the type

21:44

of person that went to the gym four days a week

21:47

even if it was only for five minutes and this

21:49

is something that I think a lot of people sort of fail

21:52

to realize which is a Habit

21:54

must be established before it can be improved, you

21:56

know, it has to become the standard in your

21:58

life before you scale it up up and optimize

22:00

it and turn it into something more. You need to

22:02

standardize before you optimize. So I'm always

22:05

reminded of that quote from Ed Latimore, who

22:07

says, the heaviest weight at the gym is

22:09

the front door. Like, there

22:11

are a lot of things in life that are like that. I

22:13

love that. The starting is the hard part.

22:15

And so if you can scale it down and

22:18

use strategies like the two-minute rule, you can master

22:20

the art of showing up and gain a foothold

22:22

and then advance from there. Yeah,

22:24

I had the same response hearing the two-minute

22:26

rule. Initially, I was like, that's crazy. Drive

22:29

to the gym and do a two-minute workout. But

22:32

I can see that it actually

22:35

reverses the sense

22:37

of onus, the sense of obligation

22:39

you have to do this big thing. And you

22:41

start to think, hey, I'm here. Why

22:43

don't I build on this? And this

22:45

notion that starting something is the hardest

22:47

part, as you say, that opening the door is

22:52

the heaviest weight to lift in the gym, that

22:54

really resonates for me, right? But we

22:56

just have to

22:59

make starting easier. It's easier

23:01

to optimize something you're already doing than it

23:03

is to start something that you haven't done

23:05

yet. And so if you

23:08

can just get started, there are tons

23:10

of options for optimizing and improving. And

23:12

the key is making it as easy as possible

23:15

to start. So if I could only give one

23:17

of these four laws, I think all four are

23:19

helpful and all four work really well. But if

23:21

I could only pick one, I would pick make

23:24

it easy. The

23:27

frictionlessness of it, scaling it down,

23:30

and making it easier

23:32

to show up and get a small win and

23:34

start to have a feeling of progress, even if

23:36

it's less than what you ultimately hope to do,

23:39

that is an upward cycle, and it will

23:41

feed itself. And so making it easy to

23:43

get started is a fantastic place to focus

23:45

and think about if you're trying to build

23:48

a new habit. OK,

23:50

so final law now, make it satisfying. This

23:52

is just about reward and making sure

23:54

that you have some positive emotional experience

23:57

with what you're doing. And

23:59

sometimes, It could mean an external reward like

24:01

if I don't miss a workout for a week then

24:03

I get to take a bubble bath or go for

24:05

a walk in the woods or something or You

24:08

know you do the same sort of thing with journaling and

24:11

external rewards can be helpful for the short term They

24:13

can you know kind of make the experience more enjoyable

24:16

In the long run. I think the

24:18

real reward the real satisfaction We're going

24:20

for is that doing this habit

24:24

Reinforces the type of person I want to be and

24:26

so like in my case When

24:29

I go and work out I can be I

24:31

want to be the kind of person doesn't miss

24:33

workouts And so as long as

24:35

I'm doing my first set I can

24:37

feel good about it You know we play

24:39

this game with ourselves a lot of the

24:41

time where we kind of promise that we

24:43

can be happy once we achieve something or

24:46

will give ourselves to permission to be satisfied

24:48

once we've built the habit or stuck to

24:50

the thing or Achieved a

24:52

certain result and I think if

24:54

you can start to draw this connection Between

24:56

your habits and who you are and see

24:59

how those things that match up you

25:01

can feel happy in the moment You don't have to

25:04

promise yourself happiness in the future You can just feel

25:06

good about the fact that you're showing up and being the kind

25:08

of person you want to be Interesting

25:10

yeah, so so the identity is is part

25:12

of the reward one habit

25:14

that I have successfully developed in the last

25:16

You know 20 years kind of accidentally is

25:18

running So I didn't used to like to

25:21

run I'd force myself to do it a

25:23

couple days a week I now

25:25

run seven days a week Right

25:27

and I and if I don't I feel this

25:29

kind of hunger. I feel deprived if I don't

25:31

do the morning run So

25:34

how did this happen? I realized

25:36

that I kind of somewhat accidentally Fell

25:39

into some some of the recommendations in

25:41

the book which is I started by

25:43

giving myself permission to listen to audiobooks

25:46

or Podcasts

25:48

that I love while running and

25:51

then I look forward to the run because I'm

25:53

looking forward to listening to the To

25:55

the podcast or the audiobook. I also

25:57

gave myself permission to take a paper cup

26:00

of coffee and walk for the

26:02

first quarter mile with a cup of coffee and

26:04

just take in the sunshine in the neighborhood

26:07

right before running. And

26:10

I also gave myself permission to, if I only had

26:12

15 minutes, I was a tight schedule that day, I'd

26:14

just go and do a series of sprints, I'd be

26:16

done in 12 minutes. And

26:19

then I have this reward of like the

26:21

shower. And of course,

26:23

the thing with something like exercise and particularly

26:25

cardio exercise I think is that that

26:28

kind of runner's high you get is itself part

26:30

of the reward. All those

26:32

are such beautiful examples. There

26:35

are a couple things that stood out to me there. The

26:37

walk with the paper cup of coffee before

26:40

the run, that is such an interesting little

26:42

entry point. Momentum

26:45

is a huge thing in life. You sit

26:47

on the couch and you don't move very much and so

26:49

you're kind of low energy and you feel like moving even

26:51

less. Or you take a step, you

26:53

walk outside with a cup of coffee for a

26:55

quarter of a mile and you turn

26:57

a couple blocks and then all of a sudden you feel like

26:59

throwing the coffee down and going for a run. So

27:02

that was a lovely little entry point. The

27:05

hot shower as a reward, I can totally

27:07

see that. And that's what a delightful way

27:10

to like end the experience. I

27:12

have heard this from many readers and I always

27:14

think it's such a, I consider it to be

27:16

a piece of affirmation, which is you just said,

27:18

I kind of stumbled into some of these things

27:20

without reading the book or whatever. I think that's

27:23

great. That is such a proof of

27:25

concept. To me, the ultimate

27:27

test of an idea is does it work in real

27:29

life? And of course, I

27:31

want the things I write about to be scientifically grounded and

27:33

for them to work in the lab and all that too,

27:35

but we don't live in a lab. We live in real

27:38

life. And if it can work

27:40

in the real world and as people come up to

27:42

me and they say, oh, you know, I read this

27:44

book and I just had never quite heard it put

27:46

that way, but I've been doing this for years with

27:48

my marathon training. Or I always thought that

27:50

too, but I just didn't have a language to describe it. To

27:53

me, those are some of the best pieces of feedback because I'm

27:56

like, oh good, people who are out there like doing it, this

27:58

is how they do it too. So

28:00

anyway, thanks for sharing those examples. And

28:03

also once you know how, you

28:05

know, what the sequence of steps were that made

28:07

that work, it's easier to apply it to the

28:09

next habit you want to develop. And

28:12

another thing I've sort of stumbled into is

28:15

what you call habit stacking, right,

28:18

which is I'll get back from my run, take

28:21

the shower, and then I'm in the habit of, you

28:24

know, doing three hours of really

28:26

focused morning work. Then

28:28

I have a healthy lunch, and then after

28:31

that, James, it all falls apart. Sorry,

28:35

you got a good half day. Yeah,

28:37

so habit stacking is a really powerful strategy.

28:39

This originally comes from BJ Fogg, who's a

28:41

professor at Stanford. And he had this interesting

28:44

insight, which I think is great, which is

28:46

that it's often easier

28:48

to stick to a habit if you link

28:50

it to a habit you're already doing. So

28:53

let's take something you're already doing. So say make

28:55

a cup of coffee every morning. And

28:58

then let's take a new habit that you want

29:00

to build. So for example, let's say you'd like

29:02

to start meditating. Your habit

29:04

stack could be after I make my morning cup of

29:06

coffee, I will meditate for 60

29:09

seconds. And it's

29:11

a very clear space to insert the new

29:14

behavior into your life. One

29:16

of the things that's a challenge for a lot of people is

29:18

they kind of wake up and they sort of have a vague

29:20

notion of, you know, I hope

29:22

I feel motivated to work out today, or I hope

29:24

I feel motivated to write today. And

29:26

there's no clear and obvious place where the habit's going

29:28

to live. And so by

29:31

stacking your behaviors on top of each other, you make

29:33

it very explicit when you're going to do this. And

29:36

then once you get good at it, you can start to

29:38

chain them together. So you can say, after I make my

29:40

morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60

29:42

seconds. After I

29:44

meditate for 60 seconds, I will write my to-do list

29:46

for the day. After I write

29:48

my to-do list for the day, I'll prioritize

29:50

them. And then after I prioritize

29:52

them, I'll start working on the first one. And

29:55

so, you know, you're like six minutes into your day

29:57

and you've already knocked four or five things off your

29:59

list. And it feels like you're moving

30:01

forward. You have some momentum carrying you into the

30:04

next thing and You

30:06

can utilize little stacks like that, you know at the beginning

30:08

of the day You could do a lot of people have

30:10

one start the day Maybe when

30:13

they get to the office is just kind of like a series

30:15

of things that they do to kick the workday off you

30:17

might have another set at the end of the day to

30:19

power down or You know

30:21

some kind of routine to wrap up after dinner So

30:25

you can use them whenever you find it useful And it's

30:27

just a really nice way to get a little bit of

30:29

momentum going in the right direction. I

30:31

love this This phrase temptation

30:33

bundling that you mentioned earlier I was gonna give

30:35

you credit for it But you gave the credit

30:37

to Katie milkman because who doesn't want to bundle

30:40

temptations I mean one temptation is great multiple temptations

30:42

is even better And

30:44

I have one example of this in my own life

30:47

Which is I normally just run like a mile and

30:49

a half to two miles in the morning I get

30:51

I got a few sprints in there because it's just

30:53

really time-efficient But on

30:55

Saturdays and sometimes Sundays I'll run three

30:57

or four miles and I have

31:00

a tree which is when possible I have

31:02

a Buddy who lives

31:04

in the West Village and I I run

31:06

up to his apartment and we have tea

31:09

and then I run back And so it's like

31:11

it's twice as long as my normal run, but

31:14

I'm bundling the temptation of Listening

31:16

to a podcast or book that I love Visiting

31:19

a good friend and having tea and and

31:21

and it it just I really look forward to

31:23

those Saturday mornings. What

31:26

a cool habit. What a great way to spend the

31:28

morning I mean just so much such a better use

31:30

of time than what a lot of people myself included

31:32

are often doing on a morning You know you get

31:34

Exercise in you get outside you get to listen to

31:36

a book that you like you get social connection Hang

31:38

out with a friend that you love Then

31:41

you get to come back and do it again and finish with

31:43

a hot shower like that I don't know that just sounds like

31:45

and one of one of the most ideal ways to start a

31:47

day Let's review.

31:50

There are four things you need to do if

31:52

you want to build a new habit number

31:54

one Make it obvious if

31:57

you want to get into shape don't stash your

31:59

running shoes in the back of your closet, put

32:01

them where you can see them. Let

32:04

them remind you of the new habit you're trying

32:06

to form. Number two,

32:08

make it attractive. Another

32:10

way to think about this is to ask yourself, what's

32:13

the fun way to do this? Sticking

32:15

with the running example, maybe instead of

32:18

going to the gym and pounding out

32:20

mindless miles on the treadmill, you jog

32:22

to your favorite coffee shop and reward

32:24

yourself with an oat milk latte. That's

32:27

making it attractive. Number

32:29

three, make it easy. This

32:32

one's easy. Don't try too

32:34

much too soon. If you're getting back

32:36

into running, you don't need to run a

32:38

marathon on day one. You're better

32:40

off following the two-minute rule. How

32:42

do you scale this new habit

32:44

down to something that only takes

32:47

two minutes? Finally, number

32:49

four, make it satisfying. Give

32:51

yourself rewards. Did you

32:53

go for a short run every day this week? Good

32:56

for you. Treat yourself to a bubble

32:58

bath. Obvious, easy,

33:00

attractive, and satisfying, tick these boxes

33:02

and you'll be on your way

33:05

to forming a habit that sticks.

33:07

But what if instead of forming a good new

33:10

habit, you want to break a bad old one?

33:13

James has the answer when we come back.

33:27

Hi, I'm Jonathan Fields. Tune in

33:29

to my podcast for conversations about

33:32

the sweet spot between work, meaning,

33:34

and joy. And also listen

33:36

to other people's questions about how to get the

33:38

most out of that thing we call work. Check

33:41

out Spark wherever you enjoy podcasts. Let's

33:56

talk about how to get rid of bad habits, which

33:58

I understand. same principles could

34:00

be inverted. And once again, I will

34:03

heroically offer my own bad habits,

34:06

James, as material

34:08

here, which is a habit

34:11

that I got into unwittingly in the

34:14

last couple decades was drinking a

34:17

glass of wine or two each

34:20

night and better yet a glass

34:22

of bourbon. And of course, there was a wonderful

34:24

time, I might remind you like 15 or 20 years

34:26

ago in my defense, when we thought

34:28

that was good for us. It

34:30

was like 33, you know, there was

34:34

a New York Times article, you know, one

34:36

to two drinks a night for a

34:38

guy my size would reduce your risk of heart

34:40

disease by 33%. I had it framed on the

34:42

wall. You know, I was I loved

34:45

it. But of

34:47

course, more recently, we've learned that this is not

34:49

helpful. And I've been studying my sleep patterns. And

34:52

I know it's not helping my sleep, right? So

34:54

how can I reduce my my drinking habit?

34:57

Okay, so we talked

34:59

about building a good habit, make it

35:01

obvious, attractive, easy, satisfying. If

35:04

you want to break a bad habit, then you

35:06

just invert those four. So make it invisible,

35:09

unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying.

35:12

Now, again, there are many ways to do

35:15

each of these things. So let's

35:17

say in the case of you know, drinking less

35:20

wine, making invisible could be

35:22

as drastic as keeping it out of the house

35:24

and not buying it. So that obviously is

35:26

less likely to see it. But you also could

35:28

really rash that this is like an extreme measure

35:30

jams. Yeah, yeah. But you also could just position

35:33

it in a way that you're less likely to

35:35

see it. You know, right now you might

35:37

have the wine bottles out on the counter and

35:39

some kind of display or stand. And

35:42

you could tuck them away in a cabinet or

35:44

put them in the pantry or something, you know,

35:46

somewhere that's hidden. Yeah. And you would think that

35:48

that might not matter that much. But let me

35:50

give you two personal examples for me. So the

35:52

first one's drinking related, I've noticed if I buy

35:54

a six pack of beer, and

35:56

I put it in the front of the fridge, like in the door or

35:58

something where I can see it as as soon as I open it up. I'll

36:01

grab one and drink it with dinner just because it's

36:03

there. But if I tuck it like

36:05

on the lowest shelf, put it like all the way in the back

36:07

and then I kind of got to bend down to see it. Sometimes

36:10

I will forget that I bought it. It'll be there

36:13

for two, three, four weeks. I won't even remember that

36:15

it's in there. And so

36:17

often what you find is just a little bit

36:19

of friction making it a little bit invisible is

36:22

enough to curtail the habit. A

36:24

similar one that I think we all can resonate at some

36:27

level with. So let's take our smartphones.

36:30

If I have my phone next to me, I'm like

36:32

everybody else. I'll check it every three minutes just because

36:34

it's there. But

36:37

if I have a home office, so

36:39

I have this little rule for myself where I try, I

36:41

can't do it every day, but I probably do it seven

36:43

out of 10 days or something. I

36:45

leave my phone in another room until lunch and

36:48

I have a home office so

36:50

it's only 30 seconds away. If

36:53

I wanted to go get it, I could just walk down the stairs and

36:55

grab it. But I never go get

36:57

it. And I always think like, isn't that interesting? On

36:59

the one hand, I wanted it so bad that I

37:01

would check it every three minutes when it was next

37:03

to me. But on the other hand,

37:05

I never wanted it badly enough that I would work

37:07

30 seconds to go get it. And

37:10

you find that a lot of habits are like

37:12

that. If you just introduce a little bit of

37:14

distance, you make them a little bit invisible, they

37:16

often reduce themselves. It's a little bit of

37:18

an approach of parenting ourselves.

37:22

We do these things to restrict screen time and to

37:25

help our children develop healthy habits and maybe

37:27

we need to treat ourselves as children to

37:29

some degree because we are. I

37:31

think one of the challenges, especially with phones, is

37:33

that they are both useful and unuseful. It is

37:36

the blending of they're so powerful and helpful. That's

37:38

why we all want them and they make us

37:40

productive and help us connect with our loved ones.

37:42

And it's awesome to be able to do a

37:44

lot of the things that you can do with

37:46

it. But it also

37:48

is very unhelpful and I think we all have the

37:51

sense that maybe we use it more than we would

37:53

like to, even though we benefit from it in other

37:55

ways. And so I'm trying to

37:57

find ways to parent myself so that I can use

37:59

it. the features that I love and that bring a

38:01

lot of value to me and I feel good about

38:03

in the long run and maybe ignore some of the

38:06

ones where I feel like, man, I probably gave up

38:08

an hour today just doing a bunch of stuff I

38:10

didn't even really need to do. So

38:12

parenting yourself is kind of an interesting skill that

38:15

we all need to develop now. Yeah,

38:17

yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we can invert

38:20

these four laws for the purpose of getting

38:22

rid of bad habits. I mean, making bourbon

38:24

unsatisfying is a tall order in my opinion.

38:26

Sure. And as I've said, okay, during

38:29

the week I can't drink

38:31

bourbon at all. I

38:33

can only have a little bit of wine, which

38:35

I don't like as much as the bourbon, so

38:37

that helps. And then I

38:39

started to move the wine several days

38:41

a week to chamomile tea, which I probably

38:44

don't like quite as much as the wine. Well,

38:47

so this is a good thing too, which is

38:50

there are three ways that you can break a habit. So

38:52

you could eliminate it, so you just cut it out cold turkey, be like,

38:54

I'm never going to drink wine again. You

38:56

could reduce it, so that's kind of what I mentioned with

38:58

like leaving the phone in another room until lunch or putting

39:01

the beer on the bottom shelf of the fridge. I'm fine

39:03

with still drinking a beer or tracking my phone, but I

39:05

just don't want to do it as much. And

39:08

then the third thing you can do is you can substitute, so

39:10

you can replace it. And replacing

39:12

the wine with chamomile tea is a good

39:14

example of that. And what you often find

39:16

is that you may need a combination of

39:19

strategies because most of the

39:21

habits that you're performing, they benefit

39:23

you in some way. You're

39:26

getting something out of the experience even if there's

39:28

also a downside that you don't like. And

39:30

so that part that you are getting out of it, the

39:33

way in which it's serving you, you might

39:35

need some other outlet for that energy. For

39:38

me personally, part of what helps in

39:40

making things unattractive or attractive is

39:43

understanding the mechanism scientifically of how

39:45

certain things are good for me

39:47

or bad for me. So

39:50

example, we had a conversation recently

39:52

with Chris Van Tulliken about ultra-processed

39:54

foods that went deep

39:56

into exactly how ultra-processed foods

39:59

mess up. with your microbiome, which screws

40:02

with everything from your mood to your

40:04

longevity to your immune system. And

40:07

now, anytime I take a bite into

40:09

a Dorito, I'm thinking about that mechanism,

40:11

like exactly how that happens. So

40:14

for me anyway, this kind of like scientific

40:17

exploration of these topics

40:19

really helps me have more

40:22

positive or negative associations with

40:24

these behaviors. Definitely.

40:27

The second law, make it attractive or make it

40:29

unattractive in the case of breaking a bad habit,

40:32

is all about interpretation. It's about the

40:34

cues that you see throughout life, whether

40:37

it's a Dorito or a cookie on

40:39

the counter or the phone in your

40:41

pocket, and the meaning that

40:43

you assign to those things. And

40:45

before you educate yourself or learn something new

40:47

about an experience, maybe you have one meaning

40:49

that you associate with a Dorito, which might

40:51

in this case be, oh, this is tasty

40:53

and enjoyable and kind of fun to eat.

40:56

And then you get this new piece

40:58

of education, this new lens to view things

41:00

with. And now every time you see one,

41:02

you think you have a different interpretation. And

41:04

so what used to be attractive is now

41:07

less attractive, because you've changed the way that

41:09

you view that cue in the world. And

41:11

so make it attractive can be that can

41:13

be done in many ways or make it

41:15

unattractive can be done in many ways. And

41:18

education is one good way that you can

41:20

alter the way that you view the cues

41:22

in your life. Well, and

41:24

so when we talk about habit stacking

41:26

and building a system of habits and

41:29

how that system can kind of come

41:31

together, you say that

41:33

we shouldn't focus on goals. Instead,

41:36

we should focus on our system. This

41:39

idea that we shouldn't focus on goals

41:42

is one of the more counterintuitive claims in

41:44

atomic habits for me, because we've

41:46

all thought for years, right? Like write

41:49

your goals in big letters and put them on

41:51

the wall. And we should be driven by goals.

41:54

Why shouldn't we focus on goals? Well,

41:56

so first I should say this is coming from

41:58

someone who's very goal oriented. So I've

42:00

set goals for all kinds of things in my life. You

42:02

know, wait until I want to lift in the gym, or

42:04

grades I wanted to get in school, numbers I wanted to

42:06

hit in my business, like all sorts of stuff. And

42:09

I had this funny thing happen a couple years ago.

42:11

I came across this old page in a notebook that

42:13

I had, and it was from about, I think it

42:15

was from 11 years earlier. So I was reading a

42:17

page that it was 11 years old. And

42:20

I had written a bunch of

42:22

goals on it about things that I wanted to do at the time.

42:25

And looking back on it with that amount

42:27

of distance was interesting, because I had achieved

42:29

some of them, but most of them I

42:31

hadn't. And one

42:33

of my first thoughts was, well, clearly, writing the goal down wasn't

42:36

the thing that made the difference. You know, like if that would

42:38

have mattered, I just would have hit them all. And

42:41

what I came to realize was that the ones

42:43

that I made progress on were the ones that

42:45

I had some kind of system for, that I

42:47

had some sort of collection of habits oriented toward.

42:50

And the ones that I didn't, I just, it

42:52

was a hope, it was a wish, it was a goal, but

42:54

it wasn't anything that I had something to back it up. And

42:59

there's this interesting dynamic, and I'm kind of describing

43:01

it in myself here, but you see it in

43:03

many different areas of life, which is the

43:06

people who succeed and the people who struggle, the

43:08

winners and the losers in any given area, they

43:11

often have the same goals. So take

43:14

any Olympian, you know, presumably every Olympian

43:16

at the Olympic Games has the goal

43:18

of winning the gold medal. The goal

43:21

is not the thing that determines the

43:23

outcome. Or if you have a job

43:25

opening and a hundred people apply for

43:28

the job. Presumably every candidate has the

43:30

goal of getting the job. So

43:33

goals are common and

43:35

prevalent and pretty easy. Like I'm an author,

43:37

right? So I could set a goal to sell a

43:39

hundred million books. The goal

43:41

took me three seconds. Like the goal is

43:44

not the hard part. It's building a system

43:46

of behaviors, a collection of habits that carries

43:48

you toward that outcome. And

43:50

so if I was gonna put like a little finer

43:52

point on the language here, what do I mean by

43:54

goal and system? Your

43:56

goal is your desired outcome, the target, the thing

43:58

you're shooting for. What is

44:00

your system? It's the

44:03

collection of daily habits that you follow. And

44:05

if there is ever a gap between

44:07

your goal and your system, if there's

44:09

ever a difference between your desired outcome

44:12

and your daily habits, your

44:14

daily habits will always win. So

44:17

whatever system you've been running, whatever collection of habits

44:19

you've been following for the last, I don't know,

44:21

let's say six months or a year or two

44:23

years, it's carried you almost inevitably to

44:25

the outcomes that you have right now. Now

44:29

that does not mean that habits are the only

44:31

thing that matter in life. Like certainly there are

44:33

other factors at play, strategy, luck, randomness, so on.

44:38

But by definition, luck and randomness are

44:40

not under your control and

44:42

your habits are. And the

44:44

only reasonable rational approach in life is to focus

44:46

on the elements of the situation that are within

44:49

your control. And I

44:51

think we all have seen this to varying degrees,

44:53

but a lot of the time your results in

44:55

life are a lagging measure

44:57

of your habits. Your knowledge

44:59

is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits.

45:02

Your bank account is a lagging measure of

45:04

your financial habits. Even little stuff

45:06

like the amount of clutter in your garage or your

45:09

living room is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits.

45:12

And we also badly want better

45:14

results in life. We also badly want

45:16

better outcomes. But the

45:18

somewhat ironic thing is that the outcomes are not

45:20

actually the thing that needs to change. It's

45:23

like fix the inputs and the outputs will

45:25

fix themselves. Design better habits,

45:27

build a better system, and you'll be carrying

45:30

naturally to a different destination. So

45:32

the last thing I'll say here is that goals

45:36

can be useful. It's not that they don't serve a

45:38

purpose, right? They're good for clarity. They're good for setting

45:40

a sense of direction. They're good for knowing what you're

45:42

optimizing for. And what you

45:44

often find is that goals can help drive people forward,

45:46

especially in the short run. Like maybe

45:48

you sign up for a 5K and the goal

45:50

of running that race is what gets you to

45:52

train for a couple months. But

45:55

then the race goes by and you turn

45:57

around and it's been three months since you've run again and

45:59

you're like like, oh, you know, you kind of get

46:01

in this yo-yo pattern. And so where I've

46:03

kind of come down on this is that goals

46:06

are good for people who care about winning once. Systems

46:09

are best for people who care about winning repeatedly.

46:12

And if you really want to make progress in the long

46:14

run, you're going to need some collection

46:17

of habits, some system or process to carry you

46:19

there. And I'm setting this up

46:21

kind of like a dichotomy, right? We have goals

46:23

and we have systems, but ultimately, of course, what

46:25

we really want is both, we want an alignment

46:27

between your desired outcome, your goal, and

46:30

your daily habits, your system. And I think

46:32

for whatever reason, we

46:34

tend to focus too much on the goal and

46:36

our hopes and wishes and dreams and not nearly

46:38

enough on the system and the collection of habits

46:40

that can get us there. And

46:43

if you have to pick one, if you have to pick either

46:45

goals or system, you

46:47

want to pick the system. You have

46:49

a great line. You don't rise

46:51

to the level of your goals. You fall to

46:53

the level of your system. And

46:56

there's another observation you make, James, in

46:58

the book that really resonated for me,

47:00

which is that goals restrict happiness. You

47:03

know, and it seems to me that's partly because of

47:05

this. A lot of

47:07

people I know who've been successful have

47:10

the problem of the receding goalpost, you

47:12

know? Like your goal is I'm

47:14

going to write a book, you know, and

47:17

you write the, and in your

47:19

mind, you think once I've written the book, I'll

47:21

be a guy who's written a book and that's

47:23

just going to completely transform my

47:25

life. And, you know, you publish

47:28

the book and you feel the same. And

47:31

then you set another goal and another goal. And

47:34

there's something about kind

47:36

of goal realization that is

47:39

less satisfying than we think it will be. We

47:43

sort of are infinitely promising to ourselves

47:45

that we'll be happy when I'll be

47:47

happy if I've achieved this thing or

47:49

I'll give myself permission to feel satisfied

47:51

once this is done. And

47:54

I think that is another reason to fall in

47:56

love with the system and the process, which is

47:58

that if you're focused on. that

48:00

you can feel good about yourself anytime the system

48:02

is running. You don't have to wait for the

48:04

long-term result in order to feel

48:07

satisfied or to give yourself permission to be

48:09

happy in the moment. And certainly

48:11

there will be a great moment of joy

48:13

if and when the goal is achieved and

48:15

that that's wonderful but we don't

48:17

need to restrict it for ourselves. If you're

48:19

always thinking that happiness is somewhere far off

48:22

whether that's if I lived in

48:24

a different place or if I had achieved

48:26

something else or once I get done with

48:28

this project then it will continue to elude you.

48:31

But if you look for the small ways that

48:33

happiness can be here and now that I can

48:35

feel good about the craft I'm working on right

48:37

now or the way I'm spending my time today

48:40

or the place that I live or the people

48:42

that I'm sharing this moment with rather than the

48:44

yearning or the hoping or wishing for something better

48:46

in the future then you

48:48

can find a way to be satisfied and continue

48:51

to work and grow day in and day out.

48:53

Yeah yeah Gary Kasparov

48:55

has a line about about system

48:57

mindset versus outcome mindset. I

49:00

think of it's like in the context of poker like you

49:02

want to play your hand the

49:04

very smartest way you can

49:07

without knowledge of what your opponents

49:09

hold so you might you might lose but if

49:11

you played it the best way you

49:13

could have played it then that's the win. Opposed

49:15

that if you're focused on the outcome that might

49:17

just be a result of luck. And

49:20

you might win but you maybe you're playing a

49:22

weak player and so the question is like did

49:24

you get away with something that you shouldn't have

49:26

done or did you actually play it

49:28

the best way that you could? When

49:30

each of us looks holistically at our

49:33

lives and

49:35

think about what needs improvement

49:38

you know you pointed out that like you

49:41

know this can be applied to losing

49:44

weight, getting more exercise, better financial

49:47

habits, to be growing assets rather than

49:49

eroding them, learning. You

49:52

know your messy house which is a lagging measure as

49:54

you say of your cleaning habits. Do

49:56

you think that this that habit

49:58

change applies to... most areas

50:01

of our lives? I think that it

50:03

does, but that

50:06

there is a second thing that is important to

50:08

consider, which is your strategy. So we

50:12

can talk about the mechanics of habits all day

50:14

long and that's very good and helpful and it's

50:16

crucial to understand what it is that you could

50:18

be doing. And I always kind of say like,

50:20

there is no one way to build better habits,

50:22

there are many ways. And my job is to

50:24

sort of lay all the tools out on the

50:26

table. And once you have a full tool belt,

50:28

you're in a much better position to decide which

50:30

strategy might make sense for you in a given

50:32

situation. And certainly knowing those

50:34

things is very helpful. But there

50:37

is still a second question, which is which

50:39

habits should I be focused on or where

50:41

should I be directing my energy and attention? I

50:43

know how to build habits, but which ones are worth

50:46

my attention in precious time? And

50:48

I would say that's more a question of strategy.

50:51

And so if you can

50:53

have a good combination of strategy

50:55

and execution of habits and choices,

50:58

then you're in a really powerful position. So

51:01

it's not only about habits, but I

51:03

do think it is all influenced by

51:05

habits. Can you share

51:07

with us James, what are you working on now?

51:10

And do you have any bad habits? I mean,

51:12

I think it might be therapeutic for our listeners

51:14

to hear about your bad habits. I mean,

51:17

we wouldn't want people thinking that you're perfect.

51:19

Yeah, so one of the funny things

51:21

that happens is that when you write a book about

51:23

habits, people kind of assume that you have your habits

51:25

dialed in, but it actually was

51:28

the opposite. The reason that I wrote the

51:30

book is because I needed to know about

51:32

the material and wanted to learn about these

51:34

things. My publisher once told me,

51:36

we write the books we need and she's exactly

51:38

right. Like I wrote it because I was

51:40

interested in it and I started with

51:42

all the same things. Do I procrastinate? Sure, all the time.

51:45

Am I focused too much on the goal and not enough

51:47

on the system? Yes, of course, like it's a reminder to

51:49

myself. So there are many,

51:51

many habits that I have struggled with the build

51:53

and so on. One thing that

51:57

I've been working on recently is habits related

51:59

to new things. nutrition and

52:01

I'll just offer a short little story

52:03

here to illustrate something I think is

52:05

important. So

52:08

I tried a bunch of different things. I

52:11

tried different types of eating, I tried getting some

52:13

meals delivered or pre-made for me. I

52:16

worked at this one service that would freeze a bunch of meals

52:18

and I would just warm those up and I was thinking, no,

52:20

maybe I'll be able to stick to a better calorie requirement because

52:22

of that. I downloaded

52:24

my fitness pal and used that. I didn't even

52:26

use it for a full day. I

52:28

used it for one meal and I was like, man, this is a pain in

52:30

the ass. There's no way I'm going to do this all the time. So

52:34

I tried a bunch of strategies and eventually,

52:36

about three years later, what ended up working

52:38

was a hire to coach. He

52:40

sends me one email a week and

52:43

I use a spreadsheet to track what I'm eating. Once

52:47

I had loaded my 20 or 25 most

52:49

common meals into the sheet, it became very

52:51

easy to track. I could just copy

52:53

and paste whenever I was doing it. I

52:56

probably covered like 80% of the things that I was

52:58

eating. For

53:00

whatever reason, that combination of things worked for

53:02

me. The reason I

53:05

share this story is because

53:07

whenever you are building habits, there

53:09

needs to be some willingness to

53:11

self-experiment, to try things. As

53:14

I mentioned, there is no one way to do this.

53:16

There are many tools in the tool belt and it

53:18

may take you a little while to figure out what

53:20

strategy to use. It's not like I

53:22

didn't know what to do. I wrote a book about

53:24

habits. I knew how it was supposed to work, but

53:27

I still needed three years or so to

53:29

figure out a version that worked for me. If

53:32

you try something and it doesn't work out,

53:35

a lot of people unfortunately jump straight to this place of

53:37

negative self-talk where they're like, oh, see, I knew I

53:39

wasn't going to be able to stick with this. I always

53:41

fail at that or I knew this wasn't going to

53:43

work out. My

53:45

encouragement would be to tell yourself that's not what

53:48

this has to mean. We

53:50

don't have to turn it in or blow it up

53:52

into something much greater. It doesn't need to be an

53:54

assignment of your self-worth. It doesn't need to be some

53:56

bigger problem. It doesn't need to be an indication that

53:58

you'll always fail with habits. It can

54:00

just be a strategy that you tried that for

54:03

whatever reason didn't happen to work right now

54:05

and we can move on to something else to

54:07

try and see if that serves us. You

54:10

know, there's that age old advice of try,

54:12

try, try again. I actually

54:14

think we should adjust it a little bit to

54:16

be try, try, try differently. But

54:18

if you keep trying and you keep trying

54:20

different lines of attack and different approaches, eventually

54:23

you're probably going to stumble on one that works well for you.

54:26

And so there has to be

54:28

some persistence and willingness to evolve

54:30

and self-experiment that is naturally mixed

54:32

in with the practical nature of

54:34

all these habit building strategies. You

54:37

talked earlier about the power of habits

54:39

and identity, which I think is

54:41

so interesting. Maybe my favorite quote

54:44

in the book is, every action

54:46

you take is a vote for the type

54:48

of person you wish to become. I

54:51

actually shared that line with my kids.

54:54

I think it's so great. And

54:57

you say later, the process

54:59

of building habits is actually the process

55:02

of becoming yourself. And

55:05

so there's an interesting question here as to

55:07

what extent we want

55:09

to assume the identity of the person that

55:11

we're attempting to become sooner

55:13

because it makes the habits easier to

55:17

adopt. On

55:20

the other hand, we need to often

55:22

see evidence that we are the person,

55:24

right, who's assumed these new

55:26

habits in order to believe that it's

55:28

true. So which comes first, a

55:31

change in your identity that makes habit

55:34

change easier or the

55:36

habits change that then causes

55:39

us to believe that we've changed

55:41

our identity? Well, it's a two-way

55:43

street. So behaviors can influence your

55:45

beliefs. Your actions change what you think

55:47

about yourself. But what you believe and

55:49

the thoughts you carry around also shape the choices and

55:51

actions that you take each day. So

55:53

they definitely go both ways. The

55:56

common advice that you hear is fake it till you

55:58

make it or some version of that. And that's

56:00

like adopt this identity now and then you'll be that

56:02

kind of person in the future. And

56:04

I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake

56:06

it till you make it. It's asking you

56:09

to believe something positive about yourself. But

56:12

it's asking you to believe something positive without

56:15

having evidence for it. And

56:17

we have a word for beliefs that don't have

56:19

evidence, call it delusion. You know, like your brain

56:21

doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you

56:23

are and what you're actually doing. And

56:25

so my encouragement is to let the behavior

56:28

lead the way, to start

56:30

with one push up or one minute of

56:32

meditation or one sales call or one email

56:34

or whatever it is. And to

56:36

let that small action provide

56:38

evidence, be proof that

56:40

in the moment, you were that kind of person. I think

56:44

at some level, true behavior change is

56:46

really identity change. It's really getting

56:48

you to shift the story that you have about

56:50

who you are and what's normal for you. And

56:53

what we're ultimately hoping to

56:55

get to is the

56:57

point where you take pride in that

57:00

aspect of your identity. You know, if

57:02

you take pride in being a runner, then

57:04

going out and going for a run is not as

57:06

big of a deal as it is to somebody who's

57:08

just getting started. It's kind of like, no, this is

57:10

like part of who I am and what I normally

57:12

do. That is not going to

57:14

happen overnight. You can't just do it one time and then

57:16

suddenly feel like, oh, this is, you know, a big part

57:18

of who I am. But you may

57:20

not feel like you're a basketball player the first time

57:22

that you go out and shoot free throws for five

57:24

minutes. But if you go outside every day and shoot

57:26

hoops for a little bit, at some

57:29

point, maybe it's six months from now, a year

57:31

from now, two years from now, there's some invisible

57:33

threshold that you cross where you're like,

57:35

well, I guess I kind of have to admit to

57:37

myself that playing basketball is part of who I am.

57:40

And so in that sense, your

57:44

identity is almost like a painting that's constantly being retouched. You're

57:46

always sort of making edits to it with your choices each

57:48

day and the habits that you perform. And if you really

57:52

want to paint something beautiful over time, I think you

57:54

need to continue these small habits and

57:57

keep casting votes for your own. your

58:00

desired identity, and eventually you

58:02

turn around and feel really good about the

58:04

person that you shaped yourself into. And that's

58:06

probably a moment when your identity starts to

58:08

shift and you start to say, I am

58:10

a runner, this is part of who I am. That's

58:13

probably a moment of real momentum building

58:15

in the behaviors, right? It just, it

58:17

all gets easier. I

58:20

think so. I think it's probably a true inflection

58:22

point. And I think this

58:25

is the real reason that habits matter,

58:27

the deeper reason. We

58:29

often talk about habits as mattering because of

58:31

the external results that'll get you. Hey, habits

58:33

will help you make more money or get

58:36

fit or reduce stress or be more productive.

58:39

And look, that's true. Like habits can help you do

58:41

all that stuff and that's great. But

58:43

I think the real reason that habits matter is

58:46

that every action you take is a vote for the

58:48

type of person you wish to become. They are the

58:50

avenue through which you prove

58:53

your identity to yourself. That

58:55

I think is a much more meaningful thing in the

58:57

long run. Yeah, yeah. It's funny

58:59

though, I mean, even though I've been running

59:01

six or seven days a week now for

59:04

years, I still don't think of

59:06

myself as a runner. Right. I

59:08

don't really think about myself as an author,

59:10

which is interesting. Right, right, right, right. I

59:12

identify more as an entrepreneur and still do.

59:15

Now I kind of have to admit that I'm

59:17

an author because the book exists. But it

59:20

is interesting how we can do that to ourselves in some ways.

59:24

To recap, we've learned the

59:26

four laws of behavior change.

59:28

Make it obvious, attractive, easy,

59:30

and satisfying. When you want

59:32

to form a new habit, just tick those

59:34

boxes. If you want to zap

59:36

a bad habit, invert those

59:38

rules. Make that bad habit

59:41

invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying.

59:44

Simple as they sound, those are

59:46

the Newtonian laws that govern the

59:48

mechanics of habit formation. And

59:51

it was James' ability to isolate them

59:53

that turned atomic habits into one of

59:55

the best-selling books of the decade. So

59:58

you'd think he wouldn't have any regrets. Because

1:00:01

what's there to regret when you've sold 15 million

1:00:04

copies? But you'd be wrong.

1:00:06

There is something James wishes he could

1:00:09

change about atomic habits. It's

1:00:11

one area that are one topic that I wish

1:00:13

I had emphasized even more in the book than

1:00:15

I did. What is that one

1:00:18

area, that one topic? The

1:00:20

answer after the break. Hey

1:00:27

folks, Rufus here. If you're a fan

1:00:29

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1:00:31

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Raising Health wherever you get your

1:01:11

podcasts. Let's

1:01:23

talk about habits and community. Because I think

1:01:25

to me, this is really, really interesting. I

1:01:28

mean, it's another interesting

1:01:30

two-way dynamic, as you were saying about

1:01:32

identity. Like on the one hand, we

1:01:35

have a tendency to behave like the people around

1:01:38

us, right? So you say in the book,

1:01:41

choosing what people you spend time

1:01:43

with is a powerful

1:01:45

part of making the behaviors you want

1:01:47

to adopt attractive, right?

1:01:50

On the other hand, we often need

1:01:53

to demonstrate the right behaviors in order

1:01:55

to be accepted into a community, right?

1:02:00

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe these two dynamics are

1:02:02

kind of one and the same. Like,

1:02:04

we change our behaviors around other people

1:02:06

because we want to be accepted. The

1:02:09

social influence on our habits is dramatic. It's

1:02:11

one area that I, or one topic that

1:02:13

I wish I had emphasized even more in

1:02:15

the book than I did. I

1:02:17

did write about it, but I just think since

1:02:19

publishing the book, I think it has an even

1:02:21

larger influence than I realized. So

1:02:25

the way I would describe it is that we are

1:02:27

all part of multiple tribes. Some of those groups or

1:02:30

tribes are like large, like what it means

1:02:32

to be American or what it means to be French. Some

1:02:34

of them are small, like what it means to be

1:02:36

a neighbor on your street or a member of the

1:02:38

local CrossFit gym or something like that. But

1:02:41

all of these groups that we belong to,

1:02:43

they all have a set of shared expectations

1:02:45

for how you act, a set of social

1:02:47

norms. And when your

1:02:49

habits align with the social norms of

1:02:51

the group, they're pretty attractive to

1:02:53

stick to. They're like really compelling. You know, it's

1:02:55

like, it helps you fit in and belong. And

1:02:58

when your habits go against the grain

1:03:00

of the expectations of the group, they're

1:03:02

pretty unattractive. It feels like you're

1:03:05

adding conflict to the situation. And

1:03:07

so as best you can, you

1:03:10

want to join groups where your desired

1:03:12

behavior is the normal behavior. Because

1:03:15

if it's normal in that group, then it's going to be really

1:03:17

motivating for you to stick to it. And

1:03:19

we don't even realize how pervasive this

1:03:22

force is on our habits. Like, yeah,

1:03:24

I could walk outside my house, for example, and

1:03:27

look across the street and maybe my neighbor is mowing their

1:03:29

lawn. And I might think like, oh,

1:03:31

I need to cut the grass too. And

1:03:33

you'll stick to that habit of mowing your

1:03:35

lawn for five or 10 or

1:03:37

30 years, like however long you live in the house.

1:03:40

You know, and we wish we had that

1:03:42

level of consistency with some of our other

1:03:44

habits. And it's like, why do you do it? Partially

1:03:47

you do it because it feels good to have a clean

1:03:49

lawn, but mostly it feels good to have a clean lawn

1:03:51

because it'll be judged by the other people in the neighborhood

1:03:53

for being the sloppy one. You know, so it's actually that

1:03:56

social expectation that drives the behavior.

1:04:00

There are many, many examples like this

1:04:02

throughout life. And so at some

1:04:05

root level, this comes back to

1:04:08

our deep human need, our desire

1:04:10

to bond and connect. Humans

1:04:13

are very social creatures and

1:04:16

we all want to be a part of

1:04:18

something, even if it's just your little family

1:04:20

unit. And so if people are forced to

1:04:22

choose between, I

1:04:24

have habits that I don't really love, but

1:04:27

I fit in, I belong, I'm part of something.

1:04:30

Or I have the habits that I want to have,

1:04:33

but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized, I'm

1:04:35

criticized. Well, a lot of

1:04:37

the time the desire to belong will

1:04:39

overpower the desire to improve. And

1:04:42

so you really need to try to get

1:04:44

those things aligned so that you're not having

1:04:46

to choose between, am I fitting in or

1:04:48

am I building the habits that I want

1:04:50

to have? And if you can get those

1:04:53

two forces together, then you have

1:04:55

this kind of, you actually have a powerful

1:04:57

tailwind rather than a headwind because the people

1:04:59

around you are doing the thing you want

1:05:01

to do and you're kind of pulled along

1:05:03

naturally. When we choose friends and future friends,

1:05:05

we're choosing the kind of people we want to

1:05:07

become. Yeah, in a lot of ways, when

1:05:09

you choose your friends, you're choosing your future habits. Well,

1:05:12

James, what do you see as

1:05:14

the downside of habit formation? One

1:05:17

of the downsides is that the more ingrained

1:05:19

a habit becomes, the less you start to

1:05:21

question whether it's still serving you or not.

1:05:24

And life is dynamic, it's not static.

1:05:26

And so most habits have a period

1:05:29

where maybe they're really useful, but then

1:05:31

they may outlive their usefulness. And

1:05:34

that was a hard thing for me to learn. It was

1:05:36

kind of easy for me to realize, oh,

1:05:38

I should not do things that are

1:05:41

a waste of time or not do things that are unproductive

1:05:43

or something like that. Like that wasn't that hard to convince

1:05:45

myself of, but it was much harder

1:05:47

to realize, oh, actually this used to be a

1:05:49

really good habit. It still is kind of assigned

1:05:51

the label of good habit in my mind. But

1:05:55

it has outlived its usefulness. It's not a

1:05:57

good habit for me in this current season.

1:06:00

And so that may be the case, you know, like maybe

1:06:02

a habit just lives in a certain zone in your life

1:06:04

or a certain season and it's time to move on from

1:06:06

it. The second thing that

1:06:09

is a potential downside is that as you

1:06:11

repeat these habits again and again, you

1:06:13

start to establish an identity. And

1:06:16

previously we were talking about, well, that's a really good

1:06:18

thing. We want to try to reinforce our identity. And

1:06:20

the more that you believe in that identity, the easier

1:06:22

it becomes to perform the habit. And as

1:06:25

you're cultivating a new good habit, that

1:06:28

is true. That's something that could benefit you. But

1:06:31

in the long run, the tighter that

1:06:33

you cling to an identity, the harder it becomes

1:06:36

to grow beyond it. And

1:06:38

so you can think of examples of, you

1:06:40

know, the surgeon who has done it 20

1:06:42

years a certain way and has gotten a

1:06:45

bunch of good results for their patients. And

1:06:47

then a new technology comes along and changes the way that you

1:06:50

could do the surgery. And they say, oh, well, I'm not doing

1:06:52

it like that. I've always done it this way. And

1:06:54

then five years from now, they find themselves

1:06:56

behind the curve and getting worse outcomes than

1:06:59

their peers because the new technology has moved

1:07:01

things forward. And so progress to a large

1:07:03

degree requires unlearning. It

1:07:07

requires you to upgrow and expand your

1:07:09

beliefs. It requires you to continually

1:07:12

revisit the identity that you have

1:07:15

and question whether that identity is continuing to serve you. And

1:07:18

we all find ourselves in situations where

1:07:21

we still have beliefs that we're holding onto

1:07:23

and stories that we're clinging to that aren't

1:07:26

really that helpful. And they can be all

1:07:28

sorts of things like, I'm not

1:07:31

good at remembering directions. I'm bad at math. I'm the

1:07:34

type of person that doesn't remember people's names. I have

1:07:36

a sweet tooth. You

1:07:38

can come up with all sorts

1:07:40

of stories that as you tell yourself that, you're

1:07:43

reinforcing the identity. And it

1:07:45

becomes a little harder to do something that doesn't

1:07:47

align with that. And

1:07:49

so the process of cultivating, shaping, and evolving

1:07:51

your identity is an endless one. It's a

1:07:53

practice, not like a finish line. And

1:07:57

so if you can come into it with that lens,

1:08:00

friends and realize that there

1:08:02

is no there there to get to.

1:08:04

There is just a process to continue

1:08:06

to follow and a series of

1:08:08

questions to continue to ask and refine. You

1:08:11

can see yourself as this kind of

1:08:13

endlessly evolving project and let life unfold

1:08:15

before you rather than worrying about getting

1:08:18

to a particular finish line. I'll

1:08:20

tell you my biggest concern with habits as I

1:08:22

get incrementally better at them and I can tell

1:08:25

that in the next several months I think I'm

1:08:27

going to get even better at them having just

1:08:29

read your book and had this

1:08:31

conversation is that it's

1:08:34

an incredible powerful way to kind of

1:08:36

automate to some degree sections

1:08:38

of my life. But because it's a

1:08:40

little bit like running an algorithm I'm

1:08:42

not available in the same

1:08:45

way. I'm not present in the way

1:08:47

that I am when I'm not in

1:08:49

sort of habit stack mode. I

1:08:51

worry sometimes that if I

1:08:53

let my sort of formation

1:08:57

control too much of my life I'm

1:09:00

going to lose some of the spontaneity and

1:09:02

presence that's part of my kind of

1:09:04

humanity on some level. Is that

1:09:07

something that comes up for you? It's

1:09:09

a very common thing that people bring up.

1:09:11

Oh, I don't want to pigeonhole myself or

1:09:13

feel like a robot. What about being spontaneous

1:09:15

and creative and having space for freedom and

1:09:17

flexibility? And my

1:09:20

reply is usually twofold. I mean, first it's

1:09:22

certainly I'm not going to

1:09:24

say it's impossible, but I

1:09:27

don't actually know anybody who's like, you know, I

1:09:30

just know myself once I get going on this

1:09:32

I'm going to be so consistent that I'll never

1:09:34

miss. I'm just going to be like so robotic

1:09:36

with it that it just isn't going to be

1:09:38

a problem. But

1:09:41

let's take it seriously for a second and say

1:09:43

like, okay, maybe that is a potential challenge. The

1:09:45

way that I view it is

1:09:47

that habits don't restrict freedom. They create

1:09:49

it. It's actually the people

1:09:51

who have the worst financial habits that are always

1:09:53

wondering where the next dollar is going to come

1:09:56

from or the people who have the worst reading

1:09:58

and learning habits that always feel like they're behind

1:10:00

the curve or the people who have the worst fitness

1:10:02

habits that feel like they don't have enough energy. And

1:10:05

so certainly I don't think your

1:10:07

entire day needs to be scheduled. People would

1:10:09

probably be surprised to see how much of

1:10:11

my calendar is unstructured. My

1:10:13

favorite thing is like a blank calendar day. Maybe

1:10:15

I got one call, like almost nothing to work

1:10:18

around. But I have a

1:10:20

few pillar habits, working out, writing, reading a little

1:10:22

bit that I try to fit into a couple

1:10:24

hours of my day. And then I

1:10:26

let the other 20 hours kind of

1:10:28

cascade naturally. And I know that

1:10:30

if I really nail it with those core

1:10:32

things that I have the

1:10:34

structure and the accountability in my life that is going

1:10:37

to give me the capacity

1:10:39

to have the freedom and flexibility that I want. Amazing.

1:10:42

James Clear, thank you for your time

1:10:44

today. Thank you for writing this book

1:10:46

and doing all that you do. Such

1:10:50

an interesting conversation. Great. Here's

1:10:57

maybe the bigger reason why Atomic Habits

1:10:59

has sold 15 million copies.

1:11:02

It's an alternative framing for what ails

1:11:04

us. A better framing. Maybe

1:11:07

the problem is not that you and

1:11:09

I are lazy, hopelessly disorganized, lacking in

1:11:12

follow through, not to fully

1:11:14

discount this possibility. No, these are

1:11:16

stories we tell ourselves. We

1:11:18

are, in the end, not what we

1:11:20

think, but what we do. Nothing

1:11:23

more than the sum of our actions. And

1:11:26

those can be changed with

1:11:28

very small, easily executed, incremental

1:11:30

steps. It's just not that

1:11:32

hard. That's the cool part. I

1:11:35

have now gone two consecutive weeks with

1:11:37

daily journaling, sometimes just a few lines.

1:11:40

And occasionally I go a day or two without a

1:11:42

glass of wine. Small incremental

1:11:45

steps. I'll keep you posted. I'd

1:11:47

love to hear about the habit changes that

1:11:49

you aspire to and how it's going. Just

1:11:52

look for me, Rufus Griskim, on LinkedIn.

1:11:55

You'll see my post about this episode. Let's

1:11:58

discuss in the comments below. And.

1:12:00

If you have ideas for

1:12:02

future classics guess we're all

1:12:04

years send us an email

1:12:06

at Podcast. add next Big

1:12:08

Idea club.com. Today's

1:12:10

episode was produced by Caleb Bissinger sound

1:12:13

design by my toda or see music

1:12:15

is like so sick all a novelist

1:12:17

and it was performed by Nathaniel Walked

1:12:20

in. One. Of the best have

1:12:22

as we formed the past few years

1:12:24

is a good habit of working with

1:12:26

the brilliant folks at the Links In

1:12:29

Podcast Network. Will be back with a

1:12:31

regular episode of the Next Big Idea

1:12:33

next week and will have another classics

1:12:35

episode in Savvy Worries featuring Kim Scott,

1:12:37

author of Radical Cancer. I

1:12:39

hope you'll join us for both on Rufus

1:12:42

Griscom More to come.